


Don't Start (Original, Incomplete Version)

by CrabOfDoom



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Kingsglaive - Freeform, Mention of Character Death, Palace Intrigue, Pre-Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, Veer from Canon, WIP, emotional stress, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 01:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14683899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrabOfDoom/pseuds/CrabOfDoom
Summary: On the eve of a peace treaty's signing, the last thing Ravus expected was a truce.





	Don't Start (Original, Incomplete Version)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a stream-of-consciousness work in progress, but as it's actually the day of the treaty's signing today, I thought it would be appropriate to post what I have, and see if it's worth filling the gaps and adding on to, in the future. Line separations are said gaps, where I skipped ahead to the next solid piece I had. The ending is, as a consequence, abrupt.  
> 2018/09/15: There is now a gapless, longer version, in its own works submission. The version here will remain up, but is basically closed; any and all future chapters will be added to the new submission.

  
"Lord Ravus?" spoke a Lucian guard from the arch that led into the guest suite's sitting room.

Ravus hated the title. No matter whose voice carried it, he could hear them judging him as being less than his birthright. No one could fill the word with contept and mockery quite like Caligo, but it was an insult from everyone's lips.

"Speak," Ravus ordered bluntly. He paced away from the window, and around the open expanse at the sitting room's center.

"His Majesty, King Regis, has requested an audience," the guard relayed.

Well, if _that_ wasn't the last thing on Eos Ravus would've cared to do at that moment.

"There are a dozen Imperial dignitaries in the Citadel tonight," Ravus sighed. "That's what they're along for, is these audiences and political niceties. Pester _them_. I'll not be attending."

"Begging your pardon, my lord," the guard persisted, "but this is not a general address. His Majesty wishes to speak with you, specifically."

"I'm not in Insomnia for social calls," Ravus snapped. "I'm under the chancellor's orders to not leave my chambers until he, the Emperor, or the General calls for me. If Regis wishes to speak to me, he will have to limp his old carcass here, to do it."

"That was the plan, from the start, my boy."

Ravus stopped his pacing, his back to the arch, and winced. The Astrals hated him; there was no other explanation for a lifetime of this grotesque luck. Ravus cleared his face, and turned blankly to the source of the second voice.

Regis did indeed limp slightly, his left leg encased in a metal brace, as he entered just within the space of the sitting room. Little more than a tilt of the king's head dismissed the guard, although Ravus could tell that there was another man still in the suite's entryway. The king's shield, no doubt.

"I trust," Regis said, "that you'll forgive Clarus' presence, as we speak? I give my word, that my shield is no gossip."

"Do as you must," Ravus all but shrugged.

The king didn't wait for an invitation before claiming a seat in the closest well-upholstered armchair. It was his, after all, Ravus supposed. As was everything in the suite, save for the clothes on the deputy high commander's back. There were far greater things to take offense over, than a man not asking before he took the weight off of a pained leg.

* * *

 

"And why are _you_ here?" Regis asked.

"I have every right to be," Ravus said, a faint snarl under his voice. "Tenebrae is an equal in the Empire, and someone of her royal blood should be wherever it has business that affects all Imperial citizens."

Regis merely blinked, calmly.

"Don't lie to me, Ravus," Regis warned. "I'm not stupid, and nor is any child of Sylva's."

"Don't you dare speak her name," Ravus hissed. "It was your presence that killed her. You, taking your son and running, and leaving her to die. Leaving _us_ to die! Leaving Lunafreya, the last of Tenebrae's freedom, in the hands of our invaders! Twelve years, Regis, and not even one godsdamned note to apologize?!"

The former prince's rage boiled over. He couldn't have stopped himself, if he'd tried, and his balled right fist struck out to connect with Regis' jaw. It took only an instant. One heartbeat more, and Ravus felt his back hit hard against a wall. He pried opened his eyes to find Clarus' sword at his throat.

"Clarus!" Regis called out. "Stand down."

"With all due respect, Majesty," Clarus growled, "like hell, I will."

"You know this boy," Regis said, as he slowly returned to his feet. "He's not dangerous."

"A decade ago, perhaps," Clarus contested. "No willing pet of Iedolas' is going to be harmless."

"You may want to listen to your shield, old man," Ravus spoke through clenched teeth, even as he trembled in anger.

"Clarus, enough," Regis stated. His words were soft, but carried his clear authority. "He's as much a prisoner of the Empire, as his sister. Stand down."

Confusion shorted out Ravus' anger. Not even Tenebrae's own royal council saw him as anything but a turncoat who knelt for Iedolas, voluntarily. No one, not even his sister, looked at him, and saw his hands tied. Here, Regis, of all people, could? Ravus didn't even notice as Clarus' sword returned to Regis' armiger with a thick wisp of blue light.

"Ravus, my boy," Regis sighed, "I believe we have a problem. I did send letters, to you and to Lunafreya. Dozens. As many formal requests to Iedolas, to be allowed to speak with you both in person. Did they never tell you? Never let you see them?"

Regis' last memory of Ravus' face, pale eyes full of pain and in search of answers that were nowhere to be found, was clear as day in the eyes of the grown man before him now.

"No," Ravus confirmed, his voice suddenly small and lost. The former prince physically shook himself out of the stun, and tried his hardest to rekindle whatever hatred of Insomnia's king that he could still find glowing. "And I suspect that to be because no such letters exist."

"I can show you," Regis offered.

"You what?"

"My handwriting can be abysmal, on days I'm not at my best," Regis said. "I wrote each letter, each request, myself. The copies dispatched to Zegnautus and Fenestala were re-written by a secretary, far better with a pen. The originals were filed away into the archives, as with all of my correspondence. I can show you, Ravus, that they do indeed exist."

"I-I can't leave," Ravus said. "I'm under orders to stay here. ...That's your game, isn't it? To ruin everything by letting the chancellor think I've betrayed the Emperor?"

Regis and Clarus exchanged a glance. Paranoia, both supposed, was to be expected after twelve years spent as a captive of a hostile nation, but it was breaking Ravus, and seemed to allow more to slip than the former prince had intended.

"What is there, to betray, Ravus?" Regis asked slowly. "How could you be a traitor to the Empire, just for following me to my personal office?"

"You spoke of a general, earlier," Clarus added. "What general?"

If this was likely to be a suicide mission, anyway, did it matter who it would be, that ultimately killed him?

"Glauca."

"Why in the name of the Astrals would Glauca be here?" Regis demanded, quietly. "We're all signing a treaty, not meeting on a battlefield."

A light snort of irony from Ravus didn't go unnoticed.

"What do you know?" Regis asked, through a chill.

"Much," Ravus admitted, if vaguely. Information could be a bargaining chip, he realized. He could already be tried for treason, with what little he'd said so far, so why not try to make it count for something good? "But, you have to swear to me that Luna will be kept safe and protected here, in Insomnia."

"You have my word," Regis nodded.

Ravus grasped the gold chain and woven leather scarf at the front of Regis' clothes, and pulled the king closer. Ravus was again shaking, but the light in his eyes was a new mix of terrified and desperate.

" _Nay, you swear it to me_ ," Ravus insisted. "Why else would I spend the past decade playing the good, adopted son to the same bastards who made a prisoner of my only family? Even she doesn't believe me, but I've sold my very soul, trying to keep her safe and alive, Regis. You _SWEAR IT TO ME_ , that she'll remain that way, no matter what happens to me."

"And I swear to you, son of Sylva Nox Fleuret," Regis replied calmly, "that I will do everything within my power to keep Lunafreya safe."

With no small reluctance, and obvious relief from the king's shield, Ravus released Regis' finery, and allowed himself to drop to sit on a sofa's edge. He pulled his hands down his face, and loosed a heavy, shuddering sigh.

"Do not go to the signing," Ravus warned. His voice croaked as old stress left, and new stress made itself to home. "Fake an illness, or a broken bone, but do not go. It's all a set-up."

"We've already suspected that the Empire will regard the treaty with the same respect it would show a small mountain of behemoth shite," Clarus said.

"Nay," Ravus clarified, "I mean that it's a ploy for Iedolas to get close to Regis. It's going to be an ambush. Iedolas always has a gun beneath his robes. This shall be no different. Under the cover of Regis' assassination, the chancellor is going to rend the Crystal from its holds with a drop ship, and Iedolas is going to take it and the Ring of the Lucii back to Niflheim as his prizes."

"Ravus, is this true?" Regis breathed out.

The former prince halfheartedly tossed up his hands, and let them fall back into his lap. "You ask me, then you don't believe me..."

"I admit that I find it difficult to believe Iedolas would stage such an outright assault," Regis said.

"He's under the belief that with the ring," Ravus said, "it's he who will be chosen as the True King, and be able to wield the ring's power. With the ring and the crystal, he believes no nation on Eos will stand against him, and the Aldercapt line will reign over a new Solheim."

"The ring doesn't work that way," Regis pointed out. "It doesn't just obey whomever puts it on. Ravus, you know this. I know Sylva must've taught you both the Cosmogony."

"Ye," Ravus nodded.

"So, why would Iedolas ever think the ring or the Crystal would choose him?"

"Because I haven't told him otherwise...?" Ravus suggested, with a slow shrug of feigned innocence. "Perhaps I want the old bastard to die horribly, for what he's put us through. Perhaps I enjoyed the thought of Iedolas killing you, while I did nothing, and then killing himself in a mad quest to rule the world."

* * *

 

 

"I had no idea that you hated me enough to wish me dead," Regis said, softly.

"You killed my mother, left us behind for dead, killed my partner..." Ravus shook his head. "I cannot forgive. But, I can ignore, if it means Luna's protected."

"How...," Regis ventured, "was it I who killed your partner? I've never been aware of you having one."

"Prior to this farce of a treaty," Ravus told him, "a scouting mission was sent to the outer reaches of Insomnia, in search of the wall's weakest points, where to concentrate getting the most MTs through once your barrier fell, that sort of reconnaissance. Another general, one Safay Roth, was sent on that mission, as protection. He was mobbed by Lucian militants, and killed."

"We harbor no militants," Regis said. "Insomnia's military is confined within the Wall, to protect the crown city."

"There aren't any known militias in Lucis," Clarus added. "There are no settlements big enough to sustain one, outside of the crown city, and if one did exist, it could never have the strength nor firepower to bring down an Nif general, if he was even half the warrior that Glauca is. The Imperials governing the remainder of Lucis would crack down on that level of threat, fast."

"Don't," Ravus pleaded weakly, his face in his hands. "Don't do this to me."

"Do what, my boy?" Regis asked.

"If Lucians didn't kill my gem, then Ardyn _did_." Ravus did his best not to scream every word. "In my rage and despair, I wrote the proposal for invasion, myself, and _gods_ , how I wanted you and Insomnia to suffer, for taking him away from me! And Ardyn knew that. He must have. He must have known that I'd fend off every weapon on Eos, to protect Luna, but I'd burn this whole planet to the ground, to avenge my beautiful soldier. He killed my Safay, himself, and he knew all he had to say was 'Lucians did it', and I'd immediately be willing to kill _you_ , without a care to what happened to Insomnia nor prophecy, as a consequence."

"You had cost me my mother, Regis," Ravus said. "You had cost me my freedom, had cost me the most precious thing that has ever been mine, alone. I was so determined that neither you nor your son would ever cost me my sister, nor the world, it's Oracle, as well. Safay's death pushed me over that ledge, of wanting you and Insomnia to suffer for his... _utter defilement_. I didn't know which Lucians had done it, and I wanted death to rain down on all of you. And it will, tomorrow. Over a lie."

"There may yet be time to stop it," Clarus offered. "We now know it's coming. Before, we had only suspicions, and none strong enough to act on. But whatever we can do, it must be done, tonight. Anything at all more that you can tell us, Ravus, you must. Now."

"The Empire will never protect the Oracle forever," Regis said. "If a new Solheim is what Iedolas is after, the Lucii and Oracle bloodlines will forever be perceived as a threat to his claim of the world's sole throne. People will continue to follow Luna, and rise up against him, in her name. If you will not trust me as a man, then trust me as a descendant of the Lucii, Ravus. I cannot allow harm to come to the Oracle, if I wish for my line to continue its duty to Eos. Neither can Noctis. We three are in agreement, that Lunafreya's safety is our utmost priority."

"Even as you left the last Oracle to die, and her only daughter, to the MTs?" Ravus challenged. It would have been a spiteful question, at any other time in his life. In the moment, it only laid bare the hurt and unhealed wounds of twelve years without answers.

"I live with my mistakes, my shames, and my regrets," Regis replied. "You shouldn't take it upon yourself to share in them, my boy."

Ravus folded his hands to rest his forehead against them.

"Where is Glauca?" Clarus asked, calmly.

"I don't know," Ravus answered, without looking up. "I'm sure you can understand that I avoid any possibility of seeing him, even from across a docking bay. But, I've not yet had the occasion to avoid him, since Drautos first said he'd be along for this mission."

"Since _who_ said?!" Regis and Clarus demanded, as one.

Ravus looked up, confused at the reaction. "Captain Drautos. He's been an officer in the Nif army for at least as long as I've been a part of it. He and Safay provided most of my training."

" _Titus_ Druatos?" Regis pressed.

"Ye?" Ravus nodded.

"Shit," Clarus sighed. "What do we do, Regis? How do we alert the Glaives, without Drautos finding out?"

"Alert them to what?" Ravus asked.

"That their captain is a spy at best," Regis said, "and a traitor, at worst. Drautos is the commander of my Kingsglaive; has been, for years. I thought no Lucian was more devoted to Insomnia's safety."

"What of the Glaive, Ulric?" Clarus thought aloud. "He was recently disciplined for going against Drautos' orders, to save another Glaive's life. He may be more committed to the crown, than to his captain, could take over command until the dust settles and we can properly weed out whatever Drautos' damage may be."

"Possible." Regis nodded. "I'll send for him to come here, shortly. We must get word to Cor, as well. He's already overseeing our own forces' preparedness for protecting Iedolas' envoy; we must tell him to shift our armies to prepare to defend Insomnia from within. Thank the Six that Noctis is already away."

"Ravus, the emperor's envoy, alone, is not enough to pose a real threat to the Citadel's forces," Clarus said. "Where are the numbers coming from, that would?"

"They're holding, out at sea," Ravus supplied. "There's supposed to be a dreadnought and five drop ships. Each has a squadron of one hundred and fifty MTs, and a mecha gunner. The dreadnought carries an additional three hundred MTs, and two hundred Imperial soldiers."

"Odin's balls," Clarus winced.

"They can't get through the Wall nor the barrier, while my power is still intact," Regis assured him. "But the envoy ship that's already inside... If Izunia makes good on an attempt to steal the Crystal, the barrier's going to be disrupted. We've no choice but to have our own gunners shoot it down. Iedolas is within the Citadel; it won't be seen as an attempted assassination. If the chancellor is aboard when it falls, good riddance."

"I'd understand, if my advice is unwelcome," Ravus said, "but if Accordo were asked to simply have their ships in the area confirm the presence of the dreadnought and drop ships, it would do much to support Insomnia's self-defense."

"It would indeed," Regis agreed. "They'd not need to engage on our behalf, but merely verify the presence. It will mean, however, that Iedolas will know someone among his brass betrayed the Empire and warned us of the invasion. He'll no doubt look first to you, Ravus."

"If Insomnia stands by tomorrow night," Ravus nodded, "Luna will be here, and safe, and I'll have no need to return to Niflheim. If Iedolas tries to harm Tenebrae in retaliation, it will be an unprovoked atrocity against his own subjects. Accordo will corroborate that Insomnia thwarted a Nif invasion, and that a Tenebraean gave them the information to stop it."

"No matter how harshly Iedolas may have other nations under his boot," Ravus figured, "it's indefensible. The Oracle's faithful would hound their governments to cut trade with Niflheim, and Gralea can't sustain itself for long, without imported food. It would torture me to see Tenebrae attacked, but practically, it would galvanize the rest of Eos against Niflheim's incessant annexations. I can't see Iedolas risking that level of resistance."

* * *

 


End file.
